There were a hundred ways to fill in the blank.

Steve bugged me every once and awhile about not having any extra-curricular activities, but he had so many other things—work, money, chores—that getting on my case because I refused to play basketball or join debate seemed petty. He picked his battles.

I preferred to come home and try to make up for some of the sleep I'd miss during the night, because it didn't matter if I dreamed when I was alone. Besides, sleeping was the one escape I had, the one time I didn't have to deal with anything for awhile. The day, the apartment, the pain—

All part of healing

—would disappear.

"Oh, remind me to tell Steve Uncle Ron called."

"Uncle Ron?"

He was my mother's favorite brother and our least favorite Uncle; he was too stern, too serious, too strict. But I remembered seeing him at the funeral: I'd never seen a grown man cry the way he had that day. That was my last memory of him. He had vanished during my stay in Philadelphia, Christmas, the custody battle, and our move. What did he want now?

"Did he say what about?"

"Nope. Just to have Steve call him."

"You should write him a note. Or we'll probably forget."

Chris nodded and went scrambling through our disorganized drawers for a notepad. I finished packing my bag and hovered nervously while he scrawled a note to Steve. 

 "Let's go," my brother called, draining his mug and scooping his car keys off a metal  hook by the door. At least twice a week they wouldn't be there, and then the two of us would rush around for five minutes trying to find them until Chris would remember that they were in his other pants or he had lent them to Steve or he had dropped them behind the couch or something else ridiculously absentminded.

I followed my brother out the door and down the two flights of stairs to the parking lot outside. Our apartments were set in a square, the front doors opening to the parking lot, the back ones opening to a square courtyard with a small grassy hill in the center. The landlords had added benches and fancy looking lampposts around the courtyard, but all there was to look at for the longest time was the plain grass, until someone complained about how ugly it was and the landlord planted a miniature pine right in the center of it. That really spruced things up.

"I'm parked on the other side. Steve's got the spot for the week," Chris told me, waiting for me to catch up to him. Each apartment had one parking space with the apartment number painted on the blacktop. If you followed the winding driveway right, you'd reach the road to town. If you followed it left you'd reach a back-lot where people who had a second car could park. My brothers alternated who got the spot outside of our apartments.

"The school told us that your art teacher is starting an after school art-enrichment program. Why don't you check it out?" Chris asked as we wound our way through the maze of cars toward his used Neon.

"Because I want to come home after school."

"It'd be one day a week. And you'd get to paint and draw and stuff you like."

"I don't do artwork anymore."

"You could."

"No."

"Why?"

"I don't do artwork anymore," I repeated.

My mother had thought that I had potential. She used to enter me in contests, but I never won anything, no matter how long or hard she worked with me. There was always something in my work that was off to everyone else except me. I went with what I felt, despite the fact that it made my work somewhat unpleasant to view. For instance: I was supposed to do a landscape. So I painted a field of flowers, all red; then made the sky a deep orange. It had felt right.

To me.

You failed her, Michael.

"You could keep painting, if you wanted to," Chris snapped me out of my thoughts.

"I don't."

Chris rolled his eyes and unlocked the driver's side door, then pressed the button on the inside handle to unlock mine. I slid in the passenger side and thought about artwork: I missed it. It had been a long, long time since I had done anything remotely art-related. Creating didn't have the same feeling without my Mom. 

Tap.

Streak.

The white chair was stained with yellow. Until…

These will burn nicely, don't you think Michael?

My work was gone, taken by my father, and without my Mom…

We used to work every Saturday morning before and even during her illness. I tried not to think about life before healing, but I hadn't forgotten what making pictures had felt like. Everything around me would just disappear when I worked. It was me, the paper, my hands, my mother, and what we were creating.

"…door," Chris ordered.

"What?"

"Shut your door! We're not going anywhere with it wide open."

I stared out of the car in mild surprise. A slight breeze brushed my face, and for a second I wondered what it would feel like to leap from the vehicle at high speed.

Blood would come out. Like the blood on the white chair.

I shivered, wrestled my book bag to the floor, reached for the handle, slammed the door shut, and shook my head to clear the memories.

"Buckle your belt," my brother ordered as he backed the car out.

"I never buckle it."

"Start to."

"Drive carefully."

"You ride with me, you wear it."

I broke down and slid the belt over my shoulder and across my thin lap. Chris pulled up to the driveway and waited for a break in traffic. "So this art thing," he started, not letting go of his new attempt to get me a life. "Why don't you try it?"

"I don't want to."

"How come? You could meet some nice people."

"I don't want to meet any people."

"Why not?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Because I don't."

Chris glanced at me, then spotted a break in the cars and pulled onto the main road. We drove several blocks in silence, until I got nervous and reached for the radio button.

My brother's hand came out of nowhere to stop me; the second I spotted it, I jerked back against my seat. "Don't!" I nearly shouted.

Startled, Chris turned his eyes from the road to look at me and nearly sent us over the white line. He turned the steering wheel, hard, then straightened the car out. I was glad he'd made me wear my seatbelt.

"What's wrong?" he shot.

"Please don't touch me."

"I just wanted to talk to you."

"Don't touch me."

"I just didn't want you to turn on the radio. I wasn't going to hurt you."

"Don't touch me."

Chris took a deep breath and placed his hand firmly back on the steering wheel. "Steve found another doctor that we can actually afford, and—"

"No."

"Mike..."

"I won't talk, like I did at the other ones."

"We're trying to help."

I shuddered violently.

"I don't want help. Just leave me alone."

"You need to talk to someone."

I began to panic. The pain in my stomach was back, almost as strong as it was in the night. "Please, no. I'm not crazy."

"I didn't say you were."

"Then why are you making me go?"

"Because you need to talk to someone."

"I don't want to talk about Philadelphia! I want to put it behind me. If you make me tell these people about Dad and Mom, you're just dragging the pain out."

"It's not like that, and you know it."

I leaned my head on the window and closed my eyes, not answering. I couldn't bring myself to tell anyone, even the police, about my father. I knew that Chris and Steve were never going to get over that; because I hadn't had him jailed, he had been able to find me—

And finish helping.

—but they didn't understand that if I told them everything that they would turn on me; and even if we weren't that close, I couldn't stand that happening again. I had hoped that if I stayed quiet long enough they'd leave me alone. But they were so damn determined to get me to talk, without listening to me when I told them I couldn't.

My school came into sight, and I gathered up my things, eager to escape.

"Your appointment's for Thursday night."

"I'm busy Thursday."

"Doing what?"

"Working."

"Working where?"

"I'm baby-sitting."

"Who?"

"Some friends."

"What friends?"

"You don't know them."

"You're lying to me."

You need more help than I thought.

"I don't want to go. Can't you leave me alone?"

"Mike, we want to help you…"

"No."

"Damnit..."

As my brother pulled the car over, I unbuckled my seatbelt and nearly leapt out the door onto the pavement, then quickly disappeared into the crowd of students heading into the school.

"Mike, wait a second!" my brother's voice faded behind me.

I left my door open, I thought. So what?

I ducked in the front door to the front hall, lined on either side by lockers. No one looked at me. Kids from my classes walked by me without a word. Someone bumped into me and sent me stumbling, then continued on like I hadn't been there.

Sanctuary, I tried to convince myself.

            Hey, did you see…